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Excitement, Begrudged but Building

Fans had accepted the Seahawks’ woes as a cost of rebuilding under Coach Pete Carroll. A win over the Rams in Week 17 changed everything.Credit
Elaine Thompson/Associated Press

SEATTLE — Among the top news stories around Puget Sound this week was the announcement that Starbucks, the ubiquitous coffeehouse chain based here, updated its green siren logo.

Given the conflicting emotions of its fans, the city’s N.F.L. team may consider a similar makeover. Maybe add a little red blush to the cheek of the one-eyed Seahawks logo, or cover that menacing eye with an identity-masking black bar. Give the beak a smirk.

The Seahawks are, by many measures, one of the worst teams in the N.F.L. That they are the first division winner with a losing record and are hosting Saturday’s wild-card game against the defending Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints has created an odd sort of communal ambivalence.

Some fans are happy. Some are embarrassed.

“I’m a little bit of both,” Campbell White said while working the counter at the 5 Spot, a diner in the hilltop Queen Anne neighborhood north of downtown.

If the 7-9 Seahawks were a college team, they would not be bowl eligible. The only thing worse than their defense (ranked 27th among the league’s 32 teams) is their offense (28th). They have no Pro Bowl players. And when they lose, which they often do, they tend to do it spectacularly. Each of their nine losses was by 15 points or more.

Until last week, all of this was minutiae for a season barely noted beyond the Northwest. The submediocrity was chalked up to the Seahawks’ major rebuilding project under their first-year coach, Pete Carroll.

But the road to irrelevance took a strange detour before the last regular-season game. The 6-9 Seahawks, losers of five of their previous six games and without their starting quarterback, found themselves playing the 7-8 St. Louis Rams last Sunday for the N.F.C. West crown — however discounted such a treasure might have been.

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The Seahawks and their mascot, Blitz, held a rally for fans on Friday.Credit
Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

A win would have been rewarded by a home playoff game. A loss, it turned out, would have given the Seahawks the eighth overall choice in next spring’s draft and saved them the presumed fate of a humiliating playoff loss. An online poll by The Seattle Times found that most fans preferred a loss to a win.

Two unexpected things happened. The Seahawks took a lead and never let go. And their fan base realized how difficult it was to root for their favorite team not to win.

“A big part of me wanted them to lose,” White admitted between pouring cups of coffee. “I wanted the draft pick. Let St. Louis be the embarrassment.”

Yet, once the Seahawks took the lead against the Rams, White said, “I kind of melted.”

Emotions have resolidified in the Seahawks’ favor since, even as the team became a national punch line. The satirical Onion summed up things by saying the Seahawks were just three losses from the Super Bowl.

But in Seattle, from radio talk shows to diner counters, and particularly within the timber-and-glass team headquarters along Lake Washington in suburban Renton, a certain realization has occurred:

The only thing worse than being the worst playoff team ever would be to lose to it. Advantage: Seahawks.

“Nobody thinks we can win,” the veteran receiver Brandon Stokley said. “Let’s just go out and play loose. They have the pressure on them. Not us.”

Supporting data has been mined and is endlessly repeated, like prayers. The Saints have been hit hard with injuries, particularly at running back. Six of the last eight wild-card games have been won by the team with the worse record. The Saints may be defending champions, but the franchise has never won a postseason road game. Qwest Field is one of the loudest, wildest settings in the N.F.L. And Saturday’s game could be played in light rain or snow.

“We’re really, really pumped up, fired up, excited, jacked to play this game,” Seattle quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said. “We think it’s very cool. I don’t know how they feel. Maybe they’re bummed that they don’t have a bye and they have to fly seven hours to southern Alaska. I don’t know. Maybe that’s how they’re feeling. We’re excited.”

The Saints beat the Seahawks, 34-19, in New Orleans on Nov. 21. It was nearly a statistical dead heat, with one major difference — the Saints scored five touchdowns, while the Seahawks turned five drives inside the New Orleans 25-yard line into one touchdown and four field goals. The Seahawks and their fans find this heartening. Hasselbeck completed 32 of 44 passes for 366 yards that day, and he is deemed healthy after missing last week’s game with a hip injury.

It all means — well, probably nothing. To hear both the Saints and the Seahawks tell it, the entire regular season means nothing.

“We’re 0-0 right now,” Hasselbeck said. Of course, 0-0 is a better record than 7-9. A hopeful look forward is better for the psyche than an abashed look back. Good luck finding anyone in town sporting one of the T-shirts proclaiming the Seahawks “Division Champions.”

But on Friday the usual Seattle postseason rituals were in place. The locally famous “12th Man” flag flew atop the Space Needle. Fans were implored to wear Seahawks blue as a sign of support. The game was deemed a sellout. The idea of not just playing in the playoffs, but winning a game that would go down as one of the most memorable in N.F.L. history, was growing.

“It’s kind of funny because Pete always says, ‘Hey, I don’t care who they bring in here — they could bring in the world champs!’ ” Hasselbeck said, referring to Carroll, the spirited coach. “And the irony is, they really are bringing in the world champs.”